lauren and i started our next day with a hike through deep creek park, near bryson city.  the hike wasn’t too long - maybe three miles total, but it winded its way past three different waterfalls, each one more beautiful than the last.  i picked out this hike for the waterfalls, but what neither of us anticipated was the plethora of butterflies all along the hike.  all told, we probably saw 50 different butterflies.  such a cool surprise! after our morning hike, the day started to heat up, so we headed to nantahala forest to check out a waterfall i’d read about called dry falls (pictured above).  what you can’t really tell from this photo is a) how freakin’ huge the falls were and b) that you could totally walk BEHIND them.  it was amazing standing behind this force of nature as the water cascaded down in front of you.  truly beautiful. after the waterfall, it was dreadfully hot and we were eager to finally find a place to swim.  the road winded along a mountain river, and we pulled off at a few points to look for trails down.  we located one pretty quickly and found ourselves enjoying our own totally secluded swimming spot.  aside from the water being absolutely freezing, it was pretty much perfect. after swimming, the sun was coming down so we headed home to a nice relaxing evening at the cabin.  at some point though, we got restless and decided we needed to stop by cherokee to visit the harrah’s indian casino.  while it was a lot of fun and the people-watching was awesome, i definitely didn’t win shit and walked away $30 poorer. the next morning we got up early and headed to the nantahala river for white water rafting.  lauren had never been before, so we stuck to an easier trek that only had class 2 rapids.  it was still so much fun though!  our guide was amazing and we shared our raft with another family.  it was a lot of fun and we all got soaking wet (especially me, since i went for an optional swim that i immediately regretted). after rafting, we knew we wanted to have a quiet afternoon at the cabin for our last day, so we headed home and relaxed on the porch, made a delicious dinner of chicken kabobs, and blew bubbles and played with sparklers.  it was a nice relaxing way to spend our last day at the cabin.

lauren and i started our next day with a hike through deep creek park, near bryson city.  the hike wasn’t too long - maybe three miles total, but it winded its way past three different waterfalls, each one more beautiful than the last.  i picked out this hike for the waterfalls, but what neither of us anticipated was the plethora of butterflies all along the hike.  all told, we probably saw 50 different butterflies.  such a cool surprise!

after our morning hike, the day started to heat up, so we headed to nantahala forest to check out a waterfall i’d read about called dry falls (pictured above).  what you can’t really tell from this photo is a) how freakin’ huge the falls were and b) that you could totally walk BEHIND them.  it was amazing standing behind this force of nature as the water cascaded down in front of you.  truly beautiful.

after the waterfall, it was dreadfully hot and we were eager to finally find a place to swim.  the road winded along a mountain river, and we pulled off at a few points to look for trails down.  we located one pretty quickly and found ourselves enjoying our own totally secluded swimming spot.  aside from the water being absolutely freezing, it was pretty much perfect.

after swimming, the sun was coming down so we headed home to a nice relaxing evening at the cabin.  at some point though, we got restless and decided we needed to stop by cherokee to visit the harrah’s indian casino.  while it was a lot of fun and the people-watching was awesome, i definitely didn’t win shit and walked away $30 poorer.

the next morning we got up early and headed to the nantahala river for white water rafting.  lauren had never been before, so we stuck to an easier trek that only had class 2 rapids.  it was still so much fun though!  our guide was amazing and we shared our raft with another family.  it was a lot of fun and we all got soaking wet (especially me, since i went for an optional swim that i immediately regretted).

after rafting, we knew we wanted to have a quiet afternoon at the cabin for our last day, so we headed home and relaxed on the porch, made a delicious dinner of chicken kabobs, and blew bubbles and played with sparklers.  it was a nice relaxing way to spend our last day at the cabin.